They need to make enough money to cover the high salaries of engineers, as well as to offset the high rate of failure of risky tech ventures.
I have hope however that competing services could be developed in lower-cost locations in the world, by people with a different mindset, so there is a small glimmer of hope.
Google always have been a search engine and into ads, and still are. Ads still provide about 90% of Google’s revenue.
I have heard this statement “their product is you” many times in the major media and even academia, so I understand why you would say that. Though clever and philosophical sounding, It doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, and even becomes ridiculous the more one thinks about it. If it were true we’d also be the “product” of TV stations, radio, magazines and newspapers. Actually nobody is selling “us”. Surely nobody is selling your eyeballs or my eyeballs. The products (really services) are consumer internet services and the advertisement themselves.